Friday, July 31, 2015

Five Dollar Vanity Wall!




Okay, so I'm really excited to share this project with you because I think it's so easy, and it looks so cute! You can really hang these anywhere in your home or office, but "BFF Elysa" needed something pretty above her vanity, and so, the Five Dollar Vanity Decor was born!

So we started with her blank vanity wall. That wall just looks so sad and lonely. It's just begging for a little gold right?!...


Elysa took to pinterest and found some of her favorite sayings and decor for me to re-create. I opened up Word, and messed around with different fonts until I was satisfied with the look I created. (See photo caption below for fonts used) I repositioned everything so it would sit on the center of the page, changed the font color to a VERY light grey color, and hit print! Next, I got out my handy dandy Craft Smart Gold Paint Pen and traced over all the pretty things I printed off of Word! Ahh, so pretty! (Don't mind my little helper!)
Fonts from left to right: Calibri Light/Lucida Handwriting, Avenir Next Condensed Demi Bold/Lucida Handwriting, Bakersfield Old Face, Lantinghei TC/Lucida Handwriting, (arrows are hand drawn).


Once I had all of the wall art done, we took a trip to The Dollar Tree and found these ugly brown frames. But, as we all learned from my previous furniture update post, you can fix almost anything with a nice new coat of paint! 
Since we were painting the frames white we took all five of them apart and ended up with just the frames and no glass or backing...
Next, we laid out a few brown paper bags as drop cloths and got all of our paint and supplies ready!
We painted all the frames with a couple coats of the "Polar Bear" white paint and let them dry. (Can you tell I'm going through a white paint obsession phase? haha)
Once the paint was completely dry, we cleaned the glass and put the pictures in their frames...omg, what a difference a couple coats of paint can make, I'm obsessed!
Last step! We decided how we wanted to place the pictures on the wall, measured everything so that it would be level, and hung each picture on one nail...
...AND...DONE!!!




The wall just looks so much happier! And the total cost for this project...wait for it...FIVE DOLLARS! So easy, so pretty, SO cheap! :)


Before
After
Please feel free to leave any questions or comments in the comment section below, or email me at thecaliforniacupcake@gmail.com! Don't forget to subscribe via email for updates! 

XO.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Updated Bedroom Furniture!!


Hi Cupcakes!
Can we just take a second to swoon over this transformation?!

 I think I'm in love. 


Okay, let's get down to business here...or something like that. 

This whole project started when my long-time BFF, Elysa, and I, were sitting on her bed having normal girly chit-chat. You know, hair, make-up, boys.....home decor, normal stuff. We were totally obsessing over these pinterest-perfect bedrooms with all white furniture and gold accessories...totally dreamy. 

But let's be real, at our age (early 20's), who has money to just go out and buy two new dressers and an entertainment center to match? If you do, I'm jealous, because I definitely do not. 

Being the stubborn women that we are, a lack of funds wasn't gonna stop us from getting rid of the old and bringing in something new (and pretty) !

So, let the DIYing begin!

We started with a trip to Home Depot, which is always a good time, and picked up a few things:

KILS PRO-X INTERIOR PRIMER
We bought a gallon of this white based primer for $10, literally, it doesn't get better than that. 

BEHR PREMIUM PLUS - PAINT & PRIMER IN ONE
(Polar Bear)
We asked the paint specialist (I don't speak home depot, so we're calling them "paint specialists") for all the different shades of white and picked the one that was slightly less bright than the obnoxious highlighter white option they had. Also, it's called Polar Bear (cute right?) They whipped up a gallon for us while we finished our shopping. The paint was the most expensive part of this project coming in at $28.97 **Note : Semi-gloss is always best in my opinion because it's so easy to clean, but it doesn't give off that annoying glare that high-gloss paint does. 


SHED RESISTANT ROLLERS
I cannot stress enough how important this part is...DO NOT use the fuzzy rollers!! ONLY use the FOAM ROLLERS. If you use the fuzzy ones, they leave imprints of texture in your paint and you won't end up with a smooth surface. This kit cost us $6.97. It basically includes everything you need besides the paint itself. Sweet.

HARDWARE
Obviously, in the before pictures you can see that the furniture doesn't have any hardware (knobs or pulls) , which, let's be honest, is outdated and kind of ugly. Besides, I will take any opportunity to add a little gold to something ;) . So we walked ourselves over to the hardware section and found these beauties and we just about died. Sold. $2.48 each. We bought 8 (3 for each dresser and two for the entertainment center doors) so it cost us about $20, which sounds like a lot, but honestly, we bought 8 of them, and just look at them! So gold....and so pretty. Worth every penny. 

Once all the shopping was done (sad face), it was time to get our hands dirty (painty? whatever). We started with these...



First we sanded everything lightly. Sanding before you paint is always a good idea because it gives the primer something to stick to and provides you with a smoother surface. We used P320 sand paper by 3M.
*I don't have a picture of the entertainment center sanded, but really, it's boring, so...you're welcome.

 It took us a few coats but, eventually, it looked like this..

And finally, when it all dried, we put it back together, attached the hardware using a power drill (and a little assistance from Joe the handyman, aka, Elysa's boyfriend) and viola! Ugh, it's just so much prettier I cant even deal. Are you swooning yet?!


There ya have it. This whole project cost us less than $70...you can't even buy one decent looking dresser for that price and we have two dressers and an entertainment center. Also, did I mention that we did it in one weekend? Seriously, what's not to love about this project? Painting furniture is one of the most effective and most cost efficient ways to spruce up a boring space! Besides, it's fun. 

Dressers : IKEA - MALM 3-drawer chest in black-brown
Entertainment Center: IKEA - Besta TV bench with doors in black-brown

Leave me a message below if you have any questions or comments! You can also email me at thecaliforniacupcake@gmail.com :) Don't forget to subscribe to email updates!

XO